I got had.

I’ve taken down a post of alleged photos from the Air France crash last June 1, after reader Aviv sent me the link to Snopes — they were shot for the TV series Lost — (which I should have checked before putting them up).

Even though snopes tags it as undetermined, this looks pretty clear to me.

1. A guy is apprehended.
2. He’s being tackled and subdued to the ground.
3. Then, notice how the color of the photo and the position of the vehicle change and some white line appears diagonally across the photo. This indicates that some time had passed since the first three photos were taken and this sequence. The white line is probably what is used in crime scenes or when trying to keep bypassers at a safe distance, such as in hostage taking situations.
4.The picture where he first appears to be stripped down to his underwear has two police on top of him, both in what appears to be heavy safety gear (presumably a bomb disposal unit) and a third policeman aiming his gun at his head, who is also apparently the one who eventually shot him dead. Does this look like a posture of someone bent on premeditated cold-blood murder or someone securing a potential threat?

But what’s even more revealing are the time lapses in the photo sequence, which appear to have been crafted to distort the true story by omitting key elements. Why is there not a single photo of the prisoner while his clothes were taken down, that could dispel the Israeli claim that a he was carrying one? Why the presence of bomb disposal officers if no bomb was found? And if the Israelis’ true intention was as sinister as the author implies, wouldn’t it be a lot smarter for them to have taken him out of the street in everybody’s plain view?

I think this is Pallywood, if there ever was one. I’d love to see Richard post his take on this.

Holocaust Guilt vs. Holocaust Shame: On the Crisis of Western Civilization This is a longer version of what appeared in the Tablet. Richard Landes, Jerusalem @richard_landes [email protected]Read More »